Part I: Seals teeth and whales ears - Scott Polar Research Institute ...

We said goodbye to Jim, and John stayed on board overnight to see to the repair
of the generator. Some mail had arrived for us, so we read our letters – personal ones,
one from Ken Pierce-Butler, packages from Falkland Islands Company too. On 22
January we were up at 3 o’clock, but no sign of life on the Sparrow, so we went back
to bed again! We had breakfast at 9 o’clock and spent the morning waiting and
unpacking various crates that the ship had already brought us: new skis, ice-axes,
clothing and boots, anoraks, gloves etc. They had brought mutton carcasses and
pork, and we found a crate of oranges labeled gin! I received a new Parker '5l pen.
The new equipment was really good and it was about time that the quality
improved; up until then it was second-hand army stuff for the most part. (The only
touch of frostbite I had was owing to wearing issue boots which were too small for
me; FIDS didn't cater for large people.) These improvements were due to Ken Butler,
but the equipment still hadn't all arrived and at least two crates were lost overboard
from the ship when unloading. Naturally as I had responsibility for the smooth
running of the base I felt rather strongly about the general mixup.
A boat put off for the shore at 12.30 pm bringing back John and the engines; they
had been working on them all night. Then the boat went immediately back to the
Sparrow, which was getting up steam, and sailed as soon as it was hoisted aboard. All
very hasty! We had had only a few hours company with other people on this visit
and seen only a few new faces, but it had been a refreshing interlude.
John put in more work on the small generator and had it going by 7 o’clock, but it
was ‘hunting’ – carburetor trouble we thought? It seemed a bit of an anti-climax,
after all the efforts and waiting. In the event we had continuing problems with the
generators but John worked on them all the next day and met with some success. The
small Reliant was running quite well although it fluctuated a lot; it seemed to work
better with a heavy load. The Briggs and Stratton appeared to be all right too, but the
piston rings, phosphor-bronze, were a tight fit and tended to stick. It was difficult to
start and would require careful running in. John was settling in quite well, but had
had a baptism of fire and was understandably worried about his generators. He
continued to be immersed in the engine problems, but got in touch with Ralph at
Admiralty Bay. I learnt that he spent time at Adelvik in Iceland during the war,
where he claimed there was more snow than we had at Signy.
Our first major task after the departure of Sparrow was the erection of a new radio
aerial. Fortunately we had a fine, warm day with little wind and the mast was very
easily lowered and raised. The new aerial was very much better than the old. It was
L-shaped and ran in a north-northwest to south-southeast direction; it was a half
wavelength long and the main radiations were at right angles to its length. John
explained all this, but I was little the wiser. Over the year John had to put in a great
deal of time trying to maintain the generators. The little Reliance was still unreliable
and cut out often for no apparent reason. Working on the radio, he managed to
eliminate a great deal of the noise as we discovered on 2 February when Jimmy Knox
came over well on the R/T – and talked very patronizingly to John about radio
schedules etc. That was the first opportunity that I had had to send off any ‘signals’,
as the big generator broke down the day after the Sparrow left on 4 December. He
forestalled my message to Dr Fuchs about replacement generators, by informing us
that we were to get two new generators from Stanley (and my trousers at last – size
232